@psf/bch-js

bch-js

bch-js is a JavaScript npm library for creating web and mobile apps for interacting with the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain. It can be used for free, but requires an account on FullStack.cash for increased rate limits. Find out more from this article.

Quick Start Videos:

Here are two YouTube walk-through videos to help you get started:

• Introduction to bch-js and the bch-js-examples repository
• Working with the FullStack.cash JWT token

Quick Links

• npm Library
• Documentation
• Examples
• api.fullstack.cash - The REST API this library talks to by default.
• FullStack.cash Account - Get your API key to unlock increased rate limits.
• FullStack.cash - cloud-based infrastructure for application developers.
• Permissionless Software Foundation - The organization that maintains this library.

Quick Notes

• Install library: npm install @chris.troutner/bch-js

• Instantiate the library in your code:

const BCHJS = require("@chris.troutner/bch-js")
let bchjs = new BCHJS()

// testnet
bchjs = new BCHJS({ restURL: 'https://tapi.fullstack.cash/v3/' })

This is a fork of the BITBOX SDK (which is maintained by Bitcoin.com). This library is intended to be paired with the bch-api REST API.

If you need a backward-compatible instance of this library, you can use a 'shim'. Do it like this:

const BCHJS = require("@chris.troutner/bch-js")
const bitbox = BCHJS.BitboxShim({ restURL: 'https://api.fullstack.cash/v3/' })

API Key

The bch-api REST API hosted by FullStack.cash uses JWT tokens to pay for increased rate limits when interacting with the back end server. See this article if you want to understand the system-as-a-whole. The JWT token can be fed to bch-js implicitly or explicitly.

• Implicitly: bch-js will detect your JWT token by setting the BCHJSTOKEN environment variable.
• Explicitly: You can directly feed in the JWT token with the apiToken property when instantiating the library. Here is an example:

const BCHJS = require("@chris.troutner/bch-js")
let bchjs = new BCHJS({
  restURL: 'https://api.fullstack.cash/v3/',
  apiToken: 'eyJhbGciO...' // Your JWT token here.
})

Gatsby

bch-js is included in this gatsby-ipfs-template for building uncensorable web apps that can interact with the blockchain. When building a Gatsby (or other front-end app that uses Webpack), you'll need to add these lines to your gatsby-node.js file, as per this issue:

exports.onCreateWebpackConfig = ({ actions }) => {
  actions.setWebpackConfig({
    node: {
      fs: 'empty'
    }
  })
}

This is because the new IPFS class in bch-js uses the fs library for uploading files, which is not supported by Gatsby.

Features

This library sets itself apart from BITBOX with the following features:

• ECMAScript 2017 standard JavaScript used instead of TypeScript. Works natively with node.js v10 or higher.

• Full SLP tokens support: bch-js has full support for all SLP token functionality, including send, mint, and genesis transactions. It also fully support all aspects of non-fugible tokans (NFTs).

• Semantic Release for continuous delivery using semantic versioning.

• Greenkeeper automatic dependency management for automatically maintaining the latest, most secure dependencies.

• IPFS uploads of all files and dependencies, to backup dependencies in case they are ever inaccessible from GitHub or npm.

Documentation:

Full documentation for this library can be found here:

• Documentation

Original documentation on BITBOX is available at:

• General docs
• BITBOX Introduction
• BITBOX API Reference

bch-js uses APIDOC so that documentation and working code live in the same repository. To generate the documentation:

• npm run docs
• Open the generated docs/index.html file in a web browser.

Support

Have questions? Need help? Join our community support Telegram channel

IPFS Releases

I will periodically publish IPFS releases of this repository, including all dependencies in the node_modules folder. This ensures working copies of this repository can be retrieved in case there is any drift in dependency files, or if dependencies are pulled from npm or GitHub.

• Initial fork on 5/9/2019:

  • without node_modules folder: QmQFHfbBQdEHfhtiRLbXtX1NcgnfL45hZb7TbQimTXAuzG (4 MB)
  • with node_modules folder: QmXq9Ds6Qdkg9xbRhcF8pay9KabA6QN2y7bx3wvSqiXifk (107 MB)

• v1.0.0 - refactored to pure JavaScript:

  • without node_modules folder: QmNjFsiTZRMAUa9rZpXqZqivv9JLaNicwLSPHjyLB7PVDk (1 MB)
  • with node_modules folder: Qma9ScApwBtuL7dpdSk7jpBFTxbqRdiR921WjyP75SU7bT (100 MB)

License

MIT